Just had Primrose Hill drinks with an old friend I haven’t seen since Xmas
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
1. Burnham has buggered it. Clearly has no better ideas for how he’d do the job, and doesn’t even seem to have worked out a coherent path to displacing Starmer anyway.
2. The hatred of Starmer, stirred up by right-wing media, and left-wing backbenchers, remains wholly out of proportion. Having said that, the ID cards “announcement” is another proof point of his inability to do any kind of retail politics. Whatever one’s option of ID cards, it’s really not obvious what the connect is with “out of control migration”.
2a. Involvement from Palantir? Ugh. Kill with fire.
3. Reform’s former Welsh leader being convicted of taking money from the Russians ought to be big news, as should Reform’s pathetic apeing of US anti-vax and anti-science memes. Reform would be an existential disaster for the country, beyond anything Burnham or even Corbyn could wreak.
4. Corbyn/Sultana have also buggered it. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Corbyn lose Islington North in 2029.
An efficient and effective summary of the last few days, thanks Gardenwalker.
With respect to your 2a, what I don't understand about ID cards: for most people it's the linked central database that makes them throw their hands up in horror, rightly so in my view.
So to hint at (but as far as I can tell provide no concrete detail on) the idea that Palantir will be the gatekeepers of our data seems utterly bonkers.
I am about as sympathetic a listener to this government that you'll get. I still really want them to pull their fists out of their backsides and get to work solving some of our challenges in a semi-serious way. I would still (just) vote for them as the least worst option.
But they seem completely determined to do politics in the the most childishly ineffective way possible.
I wonder how many people are against ID cards because of the people who are expected to manage it?
Powell versus Phillipson. Both deeply unattractive figures. How did it get to that?
Is there anybody n the PLP who isn’t deeply unattractive?
Is there anyone in top-level politics who is deeply attractive?
(There's Penny Swordbearer, I guess, if she counts as top-level politics. Is it the right time for her "big news" to be that she's going into the jungle this year?)
I just paid a bill for some hallway lights in a flat I have in London. Total bill was something like £150, of which just £3 was for actual electricity, the rest comprised standing charges.
Just had Primrose Hill drinks with an old friend I haven’t seen since Xmas
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
If we were all prepared to pay more to our local authorities, everywhere, not just Primrose Hill, would be a better environment. If only we didn’t expect everyone except ourselves to pay the necessary taxes ….
Just had Primrose Hill drinks with an old friend I haven’t seen since Xmas
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
Seems to be universal among your circle of acquaintance.
Powell versus Phillipson. Both deeply unattractive figures. How did it get to that?
Is there anybody n the PLP who isn’t deeply unattractive?
Is there anyone in top-level politics who is deeply attractive?
(There's Penny Swordbearer, I guess, if she counts as top-level politics. Is it the right time for her "big news" to be that she's going into the jungle this year?)
“We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets.”
For how many Party Leadership elections in a row has the Conservative Party voted for that same sentiment?
How does PB’s Liberal Economic right take down that sentiment?
Yep, totally agree. First we need to repay just under £2trn of debt and then we will owe them next to nothing and will not need to care what they think.
Trouble is (as you know, because you're on the side of the people who have noticed), it's going to take a pretty unpleasant combination of tax rises and government spending cuts just to stop things getting worse.
Even if the government were up for it, there's about a third of the electorate who are guaranteed to be livid at anything any government says, on general principle.
UK taxes are very badly loaded on middle class wage earners . Hardly anyone else pays tax. Taxes don’t necessarily need to go “up” they need to go “broad”. Perhaps this distinction is not meaningful, but in some ways the noise generated by groaning middle class tax payers is contributing to investor negativity.
Social security is the inverse of this. It’s extremely generous (triple lock, inner city council houses for new arrivals, taxis for kids to get to school) to those who don’t “need” it, and cuts instead fall on the collective goods required for everyday quality of living (the justice system, the roads, town centres, and easy access to a doctor).
My point is, notwithstanding demographic challenges which are actually not as bad in the UK as in in other places, it’s more a question to my mind of misallocation and a lack of confidence in economic strategy, than overall fiscal balances themselves.
Just to add: yes, social security is generous in this country on international comparison. What's weird is that our poverty rate is still quite bad even after that fiscal transfer.
In a country like Denmark, the earnings distribution is much fairer, so their government spends less than we do but has less than half the poverty rate. The other distinctive thing is just how poor most of our major cities are - very unusual for that to be the case elsewhere, with poverty being something you find in towns/rural areas.
Powell versus Phillipson. Both deeply unattractive figures. How did it get to that?
Is there anybody n the PLP who isn’t deeply unattractive?
Is there anyone in top-level politics who is deeply attractive?
(There's Penny Swordbearer, I guess, if she counts as top-level politics. Is it the right time for her "big news" to be that she's going into the jungle this year?)
No idea, but since (reportedly) Rayner and Farage were voted the two most attractive MPs, "deeply attractive" seems deeply unlikely to me.
Just had Primrose Hill drinks with an old friend I haven’t seen since Xmas
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
Seems to be universal among your circle of acquaintance.
No, I had drinks a couple of days ago with two lefty friends. I have lots of lefty friends
They claimed they were both bewildered by the amount of hatred Starmer gets. However this was not exactly gushing praise
The wife said "He's not THAT bad. Of course he's disappointing, yes" and the husband agreed he's not THAT bad but then added "he needs to be replaced, anyway, he's terrible at politics"
So there you go. Two staunch north London Labourites. The best defence of Starmer from his most loyal cadres is "he's disappointing but he's not quite that bad"
Reporter: There was a little awkwardness in the courtroom because two different versions of the Comey indictment were presented, and Halligan had signed both of them. That just underscored just how new she is at this. It's raising questions on who is going to prosecute this case. Is it going to be Lindsey Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience? It appears no one in that office is prepared to do it
Just had Primrose Hill drinks with an old friend I haven’t seen since Xmas
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
If we were all prepared to pay more to our local authorities, everywhere, not just Primrose Hill, would be a better environment. If only we didn’t expect everyone except ourselves to pay the necessary taxes ….
It would take a lot of money to turn somewhere like Grimsby into Primrose Hill.
Just had Primrose Hill drinks with an old friend I haven’t seen since Xmas
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
If we were all prepared to pay more to our local authorities, everywhere, not just Primrose Hill, would be a better environment. If only we didn’t expect everyone except ourselves to pay the necessary taxes ….
It would take a lot of money to turn somewhere like Grimsby into Primrose Hill.
Well the nuke will cost a fair bit, even if it’s second hand…
"While on a flying visit to President Donald Trump in Washington in February, the Prime Minister made sure for one more stop: to the offices of Palantir – the US tech firm reforming UK public services through AI.
Louis Mosley, the head of Palantir UK, met Keir Starmer that day. “You could see in his eyes that he gets it,” he says from Palantir’s London office, in his first sit-down interview since joining the tech giant eight years ago. “The ambition is there – the will is there.”
Just had Primrose Hill drinks with an old friend I haven’t seen since Xmas
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
If we were all prepared to pay more to our local authorities, everywhere, not just Primrose Hill, would be a better environment. If only we didn’t expect everyone except ourselves to pay the necessary taxes ….
It would take a lot of money to turn somewhere like Grimsby into Primrose Hill.
Especially after years of Grimsby residents not being prepared to spend any money on their town. Grimsby used to be better than Hull. No longer.
Just had Primrose Hill drinks with an old friend I haven’t seen since Xmas
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
If we were all prepared to pay more to our local authorities, everywhere, not just Primrose Hill, would be a better environment. If only we didn’t expect everyone except ourselves to pay the necessary taxes ….
It would take a lot of money to turn somewhere like Grimsby into Primrose Hill.
It wouldn't cost that much; Grimsby is quite small. And building costs aren't as high up in Lincolnshire.
Love this bit from Wikipedia.
Grimsby is noted in the Orkneyinga Saga in this Dróttkvætt stanza by Kali Kolsson: Vér hǫfum vaðnar leirur vikur fimm megingrimmar; saurs vara vant, er várum, viðr, í Grímsbœ miðjum. Nú'r þat's más of mýrar meginkátliga látum branda elg á bylgjur Bjǫrgynjar til dynja. Translation: We have waded in the mire for five terrible weeks; there was no lack of mud where we were, in the middle of Grimsby. But now away we let our beaked moose [ship] resound merrily on the waves over the seagull's swamp [sea] to Bergen.</>
Does anyone think ID cards will stop small boats as Starmer hopes?
Italy has ID cards, and twice the boat arrivals we have.
Much as I love it, it also has very obnoxious police who will quite commonly and randomly harass any foreigners for I.D, including European ones. Not a great model for enthusiasts to hold up.
Reform have said they’ll tear up any new deal with the EU . Time to draw a clear dividing line and let Reform explain how causing more ructions with the EU will help the country when it’s clear that the US is no longer any sort of reliable ally .
Does anyone think ID cards will stop small boats as Starmer hopes?
Italy has ID cards, and twice the boat arrivals we have.
Much as I love it, it also has very obnoxious police who will quite commonly and randomly harass any foreigners for I.D, including European ones. Not a great model for enthusiasts to hold up.
People aren't deterred by the huge cost and high risk of drowning when crossing the channel, so even if the Digital ID worked perfectly and had no downsides and was cheap to implement it would at best have a very marginal effect on that route of illegal migration.
Kier Starmer might actually be a bit stupid, because God knows how he has seized on Digital ID as the answer to stopping the boats, and not recognised that right now a PM in his position doesn't need another reason for the press and public to give him a good kicking.
“We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets.”
For how many Party Leadership elections in a row has the Conservative Party voted for that same sentiment?
How does PB’s Liberal Economic right take down that sentiment?
Yep, totally agree. First we need to repay just under £2trn of debt and then we will owe them next to nothing and will not need to care what they think.
Trouble is (as you know, because you're on the side of the people who have noticed), it's going to take a pretty unpleasant combination of tax rises and government spending cuts just to stop things getting worse.
Even if the government were up for it, there's about a third of the electorate who are guaranteed to be livid at anything any government says, on general principle.
UK taxes are very badly loaded on middle class wage earners . Hardly anyone else pays tax. Taxes don’t necessarily need to go “up” they need to go “broad”. Perhaps this distinction is not meaningful, but in some ways the noise generated by groaning middle class tax payers is contributing to investor negativity.
Social security is the inverse of this. It’s extremely generous (triple lock, inner city council houses for new arrivals, taxis for kids to get to school) to those who don’t “need” it, and cuts instead fall on the collective goods required for everyday quality of living (the justice system, the roads, town centres, and easy access to a doctor).
My point is, notwithstanding demographic challenges which are actually not as bad in the UK as in in other places, it’s more a question to my mind of misallocation and a lack of confidence in economic strategy, than overall fiscal balances themselves.
Just to add: yes, social security is generous in this country on international comparison. What's weird is that our poverty rate is still quite bad even after that fiscal transfer.
In a country like Denmark, the earnings distribution is much fairer, so their government spends less than we do but has less than half the poverty rate. The other distinctive thing is just how poor most of our major cities are - very unusual for that to be the case elsewhere, with poverty being something you find in towns/rural areas.
So we must all have digital id because Skir couldn't smash the gangs and thinks people desperate to get here for work and benefits will be deterred by being invisible to the authorities
So we must all have digital id because Skir couldn't smash the gangs and thinks people desperate to get here for work and benefits will be deterred by being invisible to the authorities
Or, desperate to deflect from Morgan's financial "issues" we will have ID cards imposed on us in five years time after billions have been wasted and at least two suppliers and five heads of delivery on the project have been sacked and then knighted.
I can feel Dido Harding warming her CV as we speak.
So we must all have digital id because Skir couldn't smash the gangs and thinks people desperate to get here for work and benefits will be deterred by being invisible to the authorities
That's an impressive amount of data folk voluntarily gave the government.
On the other hand, that's just name and address data. It's not that integrated with health data, pensions data, , job data., defence data, policing data,, and much more, as Palantir has just got contracts for.
The sharing of much more data than before, voluntarily, isn't a good argument for the collection and then integration of even more data, compulsorily.
So we must all have digital id because Skir couldn't smash the gangs and thinks people desperate to get here for work and benefits will be deterred by being invisible to the authorities
Or, desperate to deflect from Morgan's financial "issues" we will have ID cards imposed on us in five years time after billions have been wasted and at least two suppliers and five heads of delivery on the project have been sacked and then knighted.
I can feel Dido Harding warming her CV as we speak.
You say 'wasted' - I say "invested in our AI future. We will be a superpower. I have a speech on my autocue. British values. And hard working families struggling with the cost of living left to us by the previous government. At least 3.6% of the value generated - if our plan proceeds - will go towards our overall target of 0.8%. Values. I thank you for your time. And now, over to Nigel."
They're all at it President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sept. 26 that reconnaissance drones likely belonging to Hungary had violated Ukraine's airspace along the border. Even my granddaughter (Durham Univ, engineering) is designing and flying drones in her course
“We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets.”
For how many Party Leadership elections in a row has the Conservative Party voted for that same sentiment?
How does PB’s Liberal Economic right take down that sentiment?
Yep, totally agree. First we need to repay just under £2trn of debt and then we will owe them next to nothing and will not need to care what they think.
You forgot to mention stopping borrowing x% of GDP every year. As well.
"Harrods warns customers details may have been taken in data breach Luxury department store says one of its third-party provider systems was breached, with e-commerce information accessed" (£)
"Harrods warns customers details may have been taken in data breach Luxury department store says one of its third-party provider systems was breached, with e-commerce information accessed" (£)
"Harrods warns customers details may have been taken in data breach Luxury department store says one of its third-party provider systems was breached, with e-commerce information accessed" (£)
"Harrods warns customers details may have been taken in data breach Luxury department store says one of its third-party provider systems was breached, with e-commerce information accessed" (£)
I was wondering how they managed to get a Grand Jury to indite Comey on the bullshit charges.
Lindsey Halligan; an insurance attorney ) presented this case to the grand jury WITHOUT any other willing member of the DOJ ( secretive GJ has no judge and no defense presentation) so who really knows if “what she said to them matches the facts” https://x.com/Cathy2NotToday/status/1971672254795993527
I think we can assume it didn't, given that she presented two sets of charging documents to the judge, which contradicted each other.
Good thread on ID cards. Why don't we have legislators/civil servants who can understand and explain this, and legislate accordingly ?
1/ I don’t instinctively like the idea of ID cards. It offends my liberal sensibilities. But Digital IDs aren’t the privacy catastrophe they would have been in the 2000s... https://x.com/LawrenceLundy/status/1971543613868998952
7/ “Done right” is doing a lot of heavy lifting yes. Of course, the devil is in design. A “canonical event log” of every check could easily tip into surveillance. Guardrails are needed around logs, retention, transparency reports.
8/ Citizens need three guarantees: – Share less, prove more. – No new central database. – Errors are visible and appealable...
That means NOT giving the contract to Palantir, of course.
Trump is ordering the declassification and release of govt records related to pilot Amelia Earhart and her final flight. She disappeared in 1937.
And you know who was president in 1937?
Biden isn't that old.
No but FDR was elected four (count 'em, four) times.
The reason the Republicans hated FDR so much that they collaborated in changing the constitution to impose the two term limit, is that he was popular. Enough so to be elected four times.
Trump isn't, and never will be.
Hence this sort of concern. Trump hates Comey because Comey's FBI investigated Trump's Russia connections.
Wasn’t it because his doge monkeys had downloaded the files and given them to him? How would being in them give him any special knowledge of who else was in them? He might well be in them but to know who else is he would likely have seen, although it’s not hard to make educated guesses about who might be.
Why would Elon Musk or anyone else need to make educated guesses when photographs of Trump and Epstein have been circulating for years along with acknowledgements of their one-time friendship?
42% isn't very strong. It's lower than I was expecting.
We were told yesterday that "The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public"
I suspected this would happen . Polling hypothetical scenarios often leads to big changes once a policy is announced. This wasn’t helped by another major fail of the No 10 comms team .
I am getting the feeling this wasn’t sufficiently stress tested/focus grouped. Indeed, I’m not even sure if it was. I think Mahmood and Starmer were desperate for some “tough on border security” announcements and signed up to whatever some Home Office mandarin put in front of them.
Home Office, Blair (possibly via Mandelson), who knows where this iteration of ID cards popped up now. My money is on the latter but perhaps an overlooked factor is that both Starmer and Mahmood are lawyers and thus predisposed to believe the answer to any issue is more law.
Nathan Gill's spot of quite serious bother barely made it to the BBC National News headlines. It was reported widely on BBC Wales News, but he was referred to as a "former" Reform leader/politician. Has he joined Labour or the Tories? I suppose not as a Labour or Tory politician convicted of that level of impropriety would have made it to the main story on the Ten O'clock news.
"Fingerprints and a €20 fee – the new rules for visiting Europe explained From October 12, Britons will face new rules to visit Europe under the EES and ETIAS schemes – here’s everything you need to know Nick Trend"
1. Burnham has buggered it. Clearly has no better ideas for how he’d do the job, and doesn’t even seem to have worked out a coherent path to displacing Starmer anyway.
2. The hatred of Starmer, stirred up by right-wing media, and left-wing backbenchers, remains wholly out of proportion. Having said that, the ID cards “announcement” is another proof point of his inability to do any kind of retail politics. Whatever one’s option of ID cards, it’s really not obvious what the connect is with “out of control migration”.
2a. Involvement from Palantir? Ugh. Kill with fire.
3. Reform’s former Welsh leader being convicted of taking money from the Russians ought to be big news, as should Reform’s pathetic apeing of US anti-vax and anti-science memes. Reform would be an existential disaster for the country, beyond anything Burnham or even Corbyn could wreak.
4. Corbyn/Sultana have also buggered it. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Corbyn lose Islington North in 2029.
An efficient and effective summary of the last few days, thanks Gardenwalker.
With respect to your 2a, what I don't understand about ID cards: for most people it's the linked central database that makes them throw their hands up in horror, rightly so in my view.
So to hint at (but as far as I can tell provide no concrete detail on) the idea that Palantir will be the gatekeepers of our data seems utterly bonkers.
I am about as sympathetic a listener to this government that you'll get. I still really want them to pull their fists out of their backsides and get to work solving some of our challenges in a semi-serious way. I would still (just) vote for them as the least worst option.
But they seem completely determined to do politics in the the most childishly ineffective way possible.
I wonder how many people are against ID cards because of the people who are expected to manage it?
Or even worse, they recall at the last attempt it was scrapped by an incoming government. It wasn't that long ago and scrapping it is the kind of populist policy that wins some votes.
"Fingerprints and a €20 fee – the new rules for visiting Europe explained From October 12, Britons will face new rules to visit Europe under the EES and ETIAS schemes – here’s everything you need to know Nick Trend"
Good thread on ID cards. Why don't we have legislators/civil servants who can understand and explain this, and legislate accordingly ?
1/ I don’t instinctively like the idea of ID cards. It offends my liberal sensibilities. But Digital IDs aren’t the privacy catastrophe they would have been in the 2000s... https://x.com/LawrenceLundy/status/1971543613868998952
7/ “Done right” is doing a lot of heavy lifting yes. Of course, the devil is in design. A “canonical event log” of every check could easily tip into surveillance. Guardrails are needed around logs, retention, transparency reports.
8/ Citizens need three guarantees: – Share less, prove more. – No new central database. – Errors are visible and appealable...
That means NOT giving the contract to Palantir, of course.
Morning.
Yes, I'm quite surprised by a lot of this eartlier generstion of experts' lack of awareness of companies like Palantir, and their integrative approach. Part of their whole raison d'etre is the massive integration of information, so as to enhance A.I. development. This is partly why Thiel and Starner seem to be so keen on these devdlopments, and have made contacts this year.
Nathan Gill's spot of quite serious bother barely made it to the BBC National News headlines. It was reported widely on BBC Wales News, but he was referred to as a "former" Reform leader/politician. Has he joined Labour or the Tories? I suppose not as a Labour or Tory politician convicted of that level of impropriety would have made it to the main story on the Ten O'clock news.
Good morning
You cannot expect anything happening in Wales to interest the London centric media who leave our news to regional coverage and mark it as not likely to give them the gotcha they want
The flavour of dill grown in Nordic climes has an intensity we don't find here
#myculinaryobservationoftheday#
Waitrose get it from Kenya, Morocco, Spain, Uk, Cyprus, Ethiopia depending on season. Maybe the Nordic stuff is pricy...
Dill needs a lot of sun to grow well, so I doubt the Scandinavians have any to spare for export, given how common it is in their food. In Norway and Sweden they use the flowers to flavour the fish dishes, as well as the chopped leaves, which may be why it seems to taste stronger there.
"Fingerprints and a €20 fee – the new rules for visiting Europe explained From October 12, Britons will face new rules to visit Europe under the EES and ETIAS schemes – here’s everything you need to know Nick Trend"
"Fingerprints and a €20 fee – the new rules for visiting Europe explained From October 12, Britons will face new rules to visit Europe under the EES and ETIAS schemes – here’s everything you need to know Nick Trend"
Does anyone think ID cards will stop small boats as Starmer hopes?
Italy has ID cards, and twice the boat arrivals we have.
Much as I love it, it also has very obnoxious police who will quite commonly and randomly harass any foreigners for I.D, including European ones. Not a great model for enthusiasts to hold up.
People aren't deterred by the huge cost and high risk of drowning when crossing the channel, so even if the Digital ID worked perfectly and had no downsides and was cheap to implement it would at best have a very marginal effect on that route of illegal migration.
Kier Starmer might actually be a bit stupid, because God knows how he has seized on Digital ID as the answer to stopping the boats, and not recognised that right now a PM in his position doesn't need another reason for the press and public to give him a good kicking.
And the petition is fast approaching 1,600,000 sigs this morning
"Harrods warns customers details may have been taken in data breach Luxury department store says one of its third-party provider systems was breached, with e-commerce information accessed" (£)
"Fingerprints and a €20 fee – the new rules for visiting Europe explained From October 12, Britons will face new rules to visit Europe under the EES and ETIAS schemes – here’s everything you need to know Nick Trend"
EUR100 on the cost of a family holiday... Brexit really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Once every 3 years - it’s hardly a massive issue
It's the approach that is interesting. A 3 year horizon on data that is not supposed to change in that time period. Passports and Driving licences have a 10 year limit so you could assume that ID cards would be time limited as well.
I hadn't been following so didn't see the extraordinary performance of Trump infront of the UN. An entertaining watch though really something has to be done when chhosing our next 'closest ally'.....!!
"Fingerprints and a €20 fee – the new rules for visiting Europe explained From October 12, Britons will face new rules to visit Europe under the EES and ETIAS schemes – here’s everything you need to know Nick Trend"
EUR100 on the cost of a family holiday... Brexit really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Once every 3 years - it’s hardly a massive issue
It's the approach that is interesting. A 3 year horizon on data that is not supposed to change in that time period. Passports and Driving licences have a 10 year limit so you could assume that ID cards would be time limited as well.
I simply cannot see them happening
The opposition is considerable, and that includes in Labour, it is not in their manifesto so the HOL do not have the same requirement to allow it to pass
Furthermore it is unlikely to be up and running in this parliament and it absolutely will not do anything to stop the boats
I hadn't been following so didn't see the extraordinary performance of Trump infront of the UN. An entertaining watch though really something has to be done when chhosing our next 'closest ally'.....!!
"Fingerprints and a €20 fee – the new rules for visiting Europe explained From October 12, Britons will face new rules to visit Europe under the EES and ETIAS schemes – here’s everything you need to know Nick Trend"
EUR100 on the cost of a family holiday... Brexit really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Once every 3 years - it’s hardly a massive issue
Small beer compared to the £100-250 pet owners, who haven’t wangled a pet passport from an EU country, are having to pay each time they take their pet abroad.
The government press release heralding Labour’s May 2025 deal significantly oversold what had been achieved, stating that pet passports "will" be coming back, making pet travel easier for GB pet owners - raising expectations, when the truth is that the agreement with the EU is merely a "shared objective", with all of the negotiations on the detailed implementation still to be done. Since the May announcement there hasn’t been a dickie of further info about process, progress or timescales, with rumours suggesting that even if things go well, nothing will change until late 2026 at the earliest - leaving a lot of people frustrated at what should have been a good news story for the government.
Anyone else slightly uncomfortable with Starmer describing Reform as our “enemy”?
Reform would be a terrible government and disastrous for this country, but they are a legal political party with democratically elected representatives.
"Fingerprints and a €20 fee – the new rules for visiting Europe explained From October 12, Britons will face new rules to visit Europe under the EES and ETIAS schemes – here’s everything you need to know Nick Trend"
EUR100 on the cost of a family holiday... Brexit really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Once every 3 years - it’s hardly a massive issue
It's the approach that is interesting. A 3 year horizon on data that is not supposed to change in that time period. Passports and Driving licences have a 10 year limit so you could assume that ID cards would be time limited as well.
I simply cannot see them happening
The opposition is considerable, and that includes in Labour, it is not in their manifesto so the HOL do not have the same requirement to allow it to pass
Furthermore it is unlikely to be up and running in this parliament and it absolutely will not do anything to stop the boats
The LibDems have a national campaign pack out on the issue already, so in those LibDem held and target seats at least, it’s going to be an issue of local prominence over this winter.
Comments
Two observations
1. Primrose Hill remains an exceptionally lovely part of the world. It is urbanism perfected, really. We used to do it - and we can do it again
2. My friend - usually apolitical - offered, unprompted, a blistering attack on Starmer. So the PB centrist dorks can whine all they like - but loathing of Starmwr is a very real thing. And widely shared
(There's Penny Swordbearer, I guess, if she counts as top-level politics. Is it the right time for her "big news" to be that she's going into the jungle this year?)
JUST IN: Sinclair announces it will bring back "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"
They claimed they were both bewildered by the amount of hatred Starmer gets. However this was not exactly gushing praise
The wife said "He's not THAT bad. Of course he's disappointing, yes" and the husband agreed he's not THAT bad but then added "he needs to be replaced, anyway, he's terrible at politics"
So there you go. Two staunch north London Labourites. The best defence of Starmer from his most loyal cadres is "he's disappointing but he's not quite that bad"
Sinclair said it was about principle, but it was actually about revenue.
Glad we got that cleared up.
Reporter: There was a little awkwardness in the courtroom because two different versions of the Comey indictment were presented, and Halligan had signed both of them. That just underscored just how new she is at this. It's raising questions on who is going to prosecute this case. Is it going to be Lindsey Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience? It appears no one in that office is prepared to do it
https://x.com/factpostnews/status/1971595700652712017
Slice a third of a cucumber fine
Slice about 6 radishes, fine
Slice one or two birds eye chilies, fine (optional but mmmm punchy)
Chop a decent crop of dill, fine
Put it all in a dish and sprinkle on half a teaspoon of sugar, a couple of teaspoons of Japanese rice vinegar, and crack some sea salt
Leave for at least 20 minutes and it is yummy
Oh, wait, not THOSE files.
These files.
@JenniferJJacobs
Trump is ordering the declassification and release of govt records related to pilot Amelia Earhart and her final flight. She disappeared in 1937.
Louis Mosley, the head of Palantir UK, met Keir Starmer that day. “You could see in his eyes that he gets it,” he says from Palantir’s London office, in his first sit-down interview since joining the tech giant eight years ago. “The ambition is there – the will is there.”
Obviously great with any fish dish
Just genuine LOL.
It 'aint gonna be that way.
And building costs aren't as high up in Lincolnshire.
Love this bit from Wikipedia.
Grimsby is noted in the Orkneyinga Saga in this Dróttkvætt stanza by Kali Kolsson:
Vér hǫfum vaðnar leirur vikur fimm megingrimmar;
saurs vara vant, er várum, viðr, í Grímsbœ miðjum.
Nú'r þat's más of mýrar meginkátliga látum
branda elg á bylgjur Bjǫrgynjar til dynja.
Translation:
We have waded in the mire for five terrible weeks;
there was no lack of mud where we were, in the middle of Grimsby.
But now away we let our beaked moose [ship] resound merrily
on the waves over the seagull's swamp [sea] to Bergen.</>
So even the Vikings though Grimsby was grim.
Much as I love it, it also has very obnoxious police who will quite commonly and randomly harass any foreigners for I.D, including European ones. Not a great model for enthusiasts to hold up.
President Trump calls for Microsoft's President of Global Affairs Lisa Monaco to be "immediately" fired.
Monaco previously served as homeland security advisor under President Barack Obama and Deputy Attorney General under President Joe Biden.
He calls her a "menace to U.S. National Security."
Trump adds: "It is my opinion that Microsoft should immediately terminate the employment of Lisa Monaco."
How?
This is - or will soon be - Social Credit. See China for details.
I loved the thought of people not noticing that and trying to work out what I meant
She’s also putting pressure on the OBR to score this and other aspects of the proposed new deal into their forecasts .
Maybe the pennies finally dropped . Stop chasing Reform votes .
Reform have said they’ll tear up any new deal with the EU . Time to draw a clear dividing line and let Reform explain how causing more ructions with the EU will help the country when it’s clear that the US is no longer any sort of reliable ally .
Kier Starmer might actually be a bit stupid, because God knows how he has seized on Digital ID as the answer to stopping the boats, and not recognised that right now a PM in his position doesn't need another reason for the press and public to give him a good kicking.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194
I can feel Dido Harding warming her CV as we speak.
The sharing of much more data than before, voluntarily, isn't a good argument for the collection and then integration of even more data, compulsorily.
#myculinaryobservationoftheday#
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sept. 26 that reconnaissance drones likely belonging to Hungary had violated Ukraine's airspace along the border.
Even my granddaughter (Durham Univ, engineering) is designing and flying drones in her course
@JohnRentoul
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1h
Powell 69%, Phillipson 31%, excl don’t knows
@DPJHodges
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12m
As I said, I don’t think it’s going to be that close.
"Harrods warns customers details may have been taken in data breach
Luxury department store says one of its third-party provider systems was breached, with e-commerce information accessed" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/26/harrods-warns-customers-details-taken-data-breach/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQScq7uFMQ8
Robbie Moore MP
@_RobbieMoore
I am not a tin of beans.
https://x.com/_RobbieMoore/status/1971531070706463107
https://x.com/IanByrneMP
Lindsey Halligan; an insurance attorney ) presented this case to the grand jury WITHOUT any other willing member of the DOJ ( secretive GJ has no judge and no defense presentation) so who really knows if “what she said to them matches the facts”
https://x.com/Cathy2NotToday/status/1971672254795993527
I think we can assume it didn't, given that she presented two sets of charging documents to the judge, which contradicted each other.
Judge: "I've never come across this before".
Why don't we have legislators/civil servants who can understand and explain this, and legislate accordingly ?
1/ I don’t instinctively like the idea of ID cards. It offends my liberal sensibilities. But Digital IDs aren’t the privacy catastrophe they would have been in the 2000s...
https://x.com/LawrenceLundy/status/1971543613868998952
7/ “Done right” is doing a lot of heavy lifting yes. Of course, the devil is in design. A “canonical event log” of every check could easily tip into surveillance. Guardrails are needed around logs, retention, transparency reports.
8/ Citizens need three guarantees:
– Share less, prove more.
– No new central database.
– Errors are visible and appealable...
That means NOT giving the contract to Palantir, of course.
Enough so to be elected four times.
Trump isn't, and never will be.
Hence this sort of concern.
Trump hates Comey because Comey's FBI investigated Trump's Russia connections.
But Trump *indicted* Comey not just for payback. Trump is testing whether he can misuse prosecutions to pervert the 2026 elections.
https://x.com/davidfrum/status/1971550532813926567
Michele Beckwith, the top federal prosecutor in Sacramento, was fired hours after she reminded a Border Patrol chief to abide by court-ordered restrictions on immigration raids. https://nytimes.com/2025/09/26/us/trump-fires-us-attorney-california-immigration.html
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/sep/26/european-roundup-harry-kane-scores-100th-goal-bayern-munich-werder-bremen
Nathan Gill's spot of quite serious bother barely made it to the BBC National News headlines. It was reported widely on BBC Wales News, but he was referred to as a "former" Reform leader/politician. Has he joined Labour or the Tories? I suppose not as a Labour or Tory politician convicted of that level of impropriety would have made it to the main story on the Ten O'clock news.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-identity-register-destroyed-as-government-consigns-id-card-scheme-to-history
US are doubling their ESTA from $20 to $40 in a few days.
EU massively delayed and massively over budget digital ID scheme....any lessons for the UK to learn?
Yes, I'm quite surprised by a lot of this eartlier generstion of experts' lack of awareness of companies like Palantir, and their integrative approach. Part of their whole raison d'etre is the massive integration of information, so as to enhance A.I. development. This is partly why Thiel and Starner seem to be so keen on these devdlopments, and have made contacts this year.
You cannot expect anything happening in Wales to interest the London centric media who leave our news to regional coverage and mark it as not likely to give them the gotcha they want
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQsG9hoBKt4
The opposition is considerable, and that includes in Labour, it is not in their manifesto so the HOL do not have the same requirement to allow it to pass
Furthermore it is unlikely to be up and running in this parliament and it absolutely will not do anything to stop the boats
The government press release heralding Labour’s May 2025 deal significantly oversold what had been achieved, stating that pet passports "will" be coming back, making pet travel easier for GB pet owners - raising expectations, when the truth is that the agreement with the EU is merely a "shared objective", with all of the negotiations on the detailed implementation still to be done. Since the May announcement there hasn’t been a dickie of further info about process, progress or timescales, with rumours suggesting that even if things go well, nothing will change until late 2026 at the earliest - leaving a lot of people frustrated at what should have been a good news story for the government.
Reform would be a terrible government and disastrous for this country, but they are a legal political party with democratically elected representatives.